This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
In response to President Donald Trump's April 7 announcement that the U.S. will engage directly with Iran to begin "very high level" talks on that country's nuclear program this coming Saturday, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is pushing back, suggesting the discussions, to be held in Oman, will be indirect.
A nuclear-armed Iran – which for several decades has been one of the world's most brutal and autocratic Islamic theocracies – is totally out of the question, in the Trump administration's view.
To size up the coming showdown, WorldNetDaily spoke to retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt, once the second-highest-ranking U.S. military official at NATO.
Considering that Iran is one of the most well-endowed countries in the world in terms of oil and natural gas, Holt questioned the country's need for thousands of nuclear centrifuges in the first place. Whether it needs nuclear power or not, "What cannot be argued," Holt told WND, "is the fact that Iran has a multitude of centrifuges capable of bringing uranium to an enriched state that is considered weapons grade."
So what range of responses is the U.S. considering, should the Iran talks go badly? Noting America's B-2 stealth bombers recently deployed to Diego Garcia and captured in satellite photos, Holt said, "The United States could have easily brought those stealth airplanes into Diego Garcia in the middle of the night, hanger them, and no one would have known they were there."
Yet, he noted, they are intentionally on full display, "because," said Holt, "the president is sending a very clear message, showing Iran not only what the stick looks like, but that he's got every ability to use it." He added, "In order to have a deterrent, that deterrent has to be credible so they see we're not bluffing."
Does that mean the U.S. will strike Iran?
"It's not the president's preference," Holt told WND, adding, "The president has done something really important and very wise in terms of strategy." That is, Trump has left open the option of either moving Iran towards an acceptable outcome peacefully or by force if necessary.
Holt says within Trump's strategy there are three possible options: First, the U.S. president compels Iran to accept a peaceful solution. Second, he said, Trump "certainly has the preponderance of forces and logistics in place to remove any nuclear weapons manufacturing capability that Iran possesses." And finally, as WND has reported on extensively, "There could be a revolution from the Iranian people, pushing [Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei] out of the picture." With Iran's currency falling to a record low against the U.S. dollar, it's not out of the question for the Iranian people to throw off their widely hated leadership, prompted even further as their economy crumbles.
Contextualizing the Iran problem with the larger crises in the Middle East, Holt also warned that whatever becomes of U.S. negotiations with Iran, "it does not relieve the fact that Syria has essentially become a terror state." That, he says, is something the U.S. may not be able to ignore. "If the sun sets on the Iranian problems in the next year or so, Syria then becomes our big problem."
"You've got villains on the decline [in Iran], but you've got villains on the ascendancy [in Syria]," Holt stressed, arguing that wise and successful "U.S. foreign policy" in the Middle East "is ever more important at this time, rather than just going to the stick and dropping bombs."
